Silva, Filipe Carreira da2016-03-102016-03-102013Silva, F. C. da (2013). Commentary “Time is of the Essence: Remarks on Michael Mann’s The Sources of Social Power”. Análise Social, 209, xlviii (4.º), pp. 959-9640003-25732182 2999http://hdl.handle.net/10451/22983I would like to begin this commentary on Michael Mann’s (b. 1942) work by focusing upon his critical engagement with Theda Skocpol in the second volume of The Sources of Social Power, his magnum opus and one of the most ambitiously conceived sociological treatises of the last few decades. The object of this engagement is post-revolutionary France. In Mann’s view, while it is indisputable that French revolutionaries modernized and bureaucratized state administration, this does not mean that the size or scope of total administration increased at all. Also, the performance of the revolutionary state was far from the image of efficiency it projected of itself. For instance, its fiscal record was pathetic; it was unable to collect more than 10% of the taxes it demanded. For most of the nineteenth century, France had not one administration but several ministries, in which personal discretion prevailed over the abstractness and universality one associates with modern bureaucracy. Mann writes: ‘So the French Revolution, like the American, promised more bureaucracy than it delivered. (…) Skocpol and Tilly emphasize bureaucratization and state power; I emphasize their limits’’ (Mann, 1993, p. 463).engMann, Michael, 1942-Sociólogosperiodical